http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/07/06/why_was_china_afraid_of_a_science_journalist?page=0,0
Who Tried to Kill Fang Xuanchang?
谁想要杀了方玄昌？
A chilling attack on a controversial science journalist in Beijing bodes poorly for scientific progress.
受争议的科学记者在北京遭暴徒凶残袭击，科学进展前景堪忧。
BY SAM GEALL | JULY 6, 2010
作者：SAM GEALL 2010年7月6日
On the evening of June 24, Fang Xuanchang, a 37-year-old science and technology editor at China's Caijing magazine, finished work around 10 p.m. and began his walk home. Half an hour later he was nearing his apartment by Beijing's third ring road when he felt a sudden blow to his back. Fang turned to see two large men behind him brandishing steel bars.
六月二十四日晚，37岁的中国《财经》杂志科技编辑方玄昌在10点左右下班，然后步行回家。半小时后，当他接近北京三环路公寓时，突然觉得后背被打。当方转过身时，发现后面两个壮汉正挥舞着钢筋。
Fang tried to run away and then shield himself as the men, ignoring his attempts to communicate with them, struck him repeatedly across his back and head. Brawny and adept in martial arts, Fang not only remained conscious, but also managed to fight back. Finally, as Fang stumbled toward a taxi, his clothes soaked in blood, the attackers left the scene.
方试图与对方理论，但两人毫不理睬，并不停地打他的头部和背部。这时方试图逃走并寻找掩护。由于方体格强壮，精通武术，所以他不仅保持清醒，还进行了还击。最后，当方满身鲜血、步履蹒跚地走向一辆计程车时，两个歹徒终于离开了现场。
Later that night at Beijing's Navy General Hospital, doctors sutured a 2-inch gash on the back of his head. His assailants behaved like professionals, carrying out the brutal ambush in about four minutes and showing little concern about passersby witnessing the attack. "Their goal was clear," Fang told me in a June 30 email. "It was to kill me on the spot, or stop me from reaching the hospital in time so that I would bleed to death."
当晚，在北京海军总医院，医生在他的后脑上缝合了5厘米长的伤口。歹徒在四分钟内进行了凶残的袭击，对路旁的目击者毫不在意，像是职业杀手所为。“他们的目的很清楚”，方在六月三十日给笔者的电邮中写道。“他们就是要当场打死我，或是让我来不及去医院就失血过多而死”。
Why would someone try to kill Fang Xuanchang? No one knows, or even seems to care. The attackers remain at large, despite an ongoing police investigation and Caijing's best efforts to cooperate with the police and involve the All-China Journalists Association. The attack was covered in brief in Beijing-based newspapers, including a brief editorial in a state-run newspaper arguing that journalists shouldn't be attacked. But no one in the Chinese media has gotten into the question of who would attack Fang -- and more importantly, why exactly Fang might have been attacked.
为什么会有人想致方玄昌于死地呢？没人知道，甚至似乎没人在意。尽管警方正在调查，《财经》也尽力与警方合作，并动用了中华全国新闻工作者协会的力量，但凶手目前仍然逍遥法外。此次袭击在北京的报纸上有简短的报道，还有一个国有报纸发表简短社论，认为记者不应成为攻击目标。但在中文媒体中，没有人问过这个问题：谁会来袭击方？更重要的是，到底方为什么会被袭击？
For Fang's colleagues, however, the message is clear: Reporting on controversial topics, as Fang has done, is unsafe. Journalists who are abused don't necessarily find out who has attacked them or why, but the message sent to their friends and colleagues is clear: Don't go there, or you could be next. It has a chilling effect on a wide circle of people. In the case of science journalism, the financial and political stakes are increasingly high, and the personal risks might be increasingly high as well.
而对于方的同事来说，这次凶案所传达的信息是很明显的：如果再报道有争议的话题，生命就会有危险。受到袭击的记者并不一定能找出谁是凶手，也不一定知道原因，但对于他们的朋友和同事来说，教训非常明确：如果不想成为下一个袭击的目标，就不要越雷池一步。对于很多人来说，这就是杀鸡儆猴。对于科学新闻来说，金钱和政治上的风险越来越高，甚至人身风险也越来越大。
Fang is one of the leading figures among China's scientific muckrakers -- a scourge of academic and government-sponsored pseudoscience and a critic of public and private quackery. For more than 10 years as a journalist, editor, and blogger on the influential (although frequently blocked) Chinese watchdog website New Threads, Fang has taken on academics listing faked awards and publishing plagiarized papers; hawkers of herbal cancer "cures," such as Wang Zhenguo, peddler of the Tian Xian herbal cancer treatment; and Chinese scientists who claim to predict earthquakes, among other targets. But paranoia and anger, even violence, mark some recent responses to Fang's work.
在中国，方是科学丑闻揭露者的个中翘楚－－痛斥科学界和政府资助的伪科学，以及抨击公开和地下的江湖游医。十几年来，作为一个记者、编辑以及颇具影响力（但不时被封）的中文打假网站新语丝的供稿人，方揭露了科学界假造的奖项、抄袭的论文，贩卖“治愈”癌症药的骗子，如“天仙疗法”的推销者王振国，号称可以预测地震的中国科学家，还有其他很多。而方的工作最近得到的回应，则是偏执、愤怒，甚至暴力。
Several weeks ago Fang, previously science editor at China Newsweek (unrelated to the U.S. magazine Newsweek), appeared alongside a fellow rationalist, the biochemist-turned-columnist Fang Shimin (no relation, better known by his pen name Fang Zhouzi), on a Shenzhen TV debate about earthquake forecasting -- a largely discredited practice that remains an article of faith for many Chinese scientists and officials. One speaker, an official from China's national earthquake administration, a significant bureau under the State Council, spoke positively about parrots that can predict temblors and the paranormal abilities of a man who claimed he heard ringing in his ears before the quake in Yushu, in northwest China, in April. One guest on the show, Ren Zhenqiu of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, accused the science activists of accepting U.S. money to stifle Chinese innovation. Fang Shimin claimed on his blog that after the recording, Ren Zhenqiu called him a "big Chinese traitor" and threw a punch at him.
几周之前，在深圳电视台的一场关于地震预测－－已经声名狼藉但还被很多中国科学家和官员奉为信条的活动－－的辩论节目中，中国新闻周刊（与美国新闻周刊杂志无关）的前编辑方玄昌与其同道的理性主义者、由生化学家转做专栏作家的方是民（无亲属关系，其笔名方舟子更为人所知）联诀出场。其中一个嘉宾是国务院下的一个重要部门、中国国家地震局的一个官员。这个嘉宾以正面的口吻谈到可以预测地震的鹦鹉，还有一个自称在4月中国西北部的玉树地震前发生耳鸣的人的特异功能。另一个节目嘉宾，中国气象研究所的任振球，指控科学激进人士收了美元来扼杀中国的科研。方是民在其博客中说，在节目录制后，任振球骂他是“大汉奸”，还对他拳脚相向。
And this is not the full extent of the threats against Fang Shimin. On July 2, Fang said on his Sina microblog that he had received a threatening phone call. "Be careful in the next few days," the voice said. "Someone is going to fix you."
这还不是方是民受到的全部威胁。在7月2日，方是民还在他的新浪微博中说他收到一个恐吓电话。“这几天要小心了”，来电者说。“有人会来修理你。”
Scientific ideas have a complex life in China. Today an important government slogan is the "scientific view of development," yet academic fraud is widespread. In January, the scientific journal Acta Crystallographica Section E, a peer-reviewed international journal based in Britain, announced the wholesale retraction of more than 70 papers by Chinese scientists who had falsified data. Three months later, the same publication announced the removal of another 39 articles "as a result of problems with the data sets or incorrect atom assignments." According to New Threads, 37 of these were entirely produced at Chinese universities. One Chinese-government study cited by Nature found that about one-third of more than 6,000 scientists surveyed at six top Chinese institutions said they had practiced "plagiarism, falsification or fabrication."
在中国，科学思想的命运错综复杂。如今，“科学的发展观”是政府的一个重要口号，但却到处都是学术欺诈。一月的时候，一份叫做《结晶学报（E）》的英国同行评议的国际期刊发表声明，一下子对七十多篇中国科学家编造数据写成的论文进行撤稿处理。三个月后，这份期刊又“由于数据或错误原子指认的问题”再次发表声明，对39篇论文进行撤稿处理。据《新语丝》的消息，这其中有37篇论文是完全由中国大学写出来的。一份被《自然》引用的中国政府研究报告指出，对中国最好的六所大学的六千余名科学家的调研结果，显示其中有大约三分之一承认他们曾经有过“抄袭、造假或捏造数据”的行为。
Critics have blamed the pressure to produce fraudulent papers on unrealistic publication targets set by bureaucrats. But for Fang Xuanchang, the problem goes deeper still, as he told me when we met in May. It represents a slide backward from the scientific spirit of the anti-imperialist May 4th Movement -- the early 20th-century uprising that championed democracy, critical thought, and innovation. Speaking after the attack, Fang described himself and his colleagues as "quixotic." "Not many people understand the work we are doing," he said. "Most Chinese people's attitudes to science are superstitious and fearful." Things might be even worse at the elite level, he said, where science is encouraged in the abstract, without a grasp of the scientific method. Regarding scientific and critical thinking, Fang added, "Chinese people need a new enlightenment."
有些评论把产生造假论文的原因，归咎于官僚设置不现实的论文发表目标而导致的高压。不过，对方玄昌来说，正如他在我们五月份见面时对我说的，这个问题还要更加深远。这代表了自从反帝反封建的五四运动－－二十世纪初宣扬民主、批判以及创新精神的革命运动－－以来科学精神的一次倒退。在袭击事件后，方把他自己和同事们描述为“唐吉柯德式”的人物。“能够明白我们所做的事的人并不多”，他这样说道。“大多数中国人迷信科学、害怕科学。”他说，而在精英阶层，这种情况可能更糟糕，因为这些人只是在表面上提倡科学而没有掌握科学方法。对于科学、批判精神，方还说，“中国人民需要一个新的启蒙运动。”
Such issues are not only of parochial concern: Renewing China's oft-cited historical reputation for scientific innovation is a matter of urgency for the world. Last month a report from Britain's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts suggested that as China enters a new phase of economic and geopolitical might, the country's potential to roll out new, low-carbon technologies becomes an increasingly important factor in global efforts to address climate change.
这类问题的影响并非只是局限于中国。重塑中国历史上经常被提及的发明创造的辉煌，对于整个世界都是一件急迫的事。上个月，一份由英国国家科学技术与艺术基金会发布的研究报告指出，当此中国进入经济和地域政治力量的新阶段的时候，这个国家开发利用新的低碳技术的潜力对于全世界应对气候变化的努力来说，已经成为越来越重要的一环。
Harnessing scientific prowess requires promoting good academic practice, scientific education, critical thinking -- and science journalism.
驾驭科学的强大力量，需要提倡良好的学术实践、科学教育、批判的思考－－还有科学新闻工作。